"What good can I do?" said a very sincere but timid Christian servant girl to a friend who was urging direct effort for the soul saving of perishing sinners upon her as a personal duty. "I have so little time and less opportunity."
"Can't you even give away tracts?" was the answer.
"When? I am employed from morning to night. On Sunday I take my turn with the others just to go to chapel and back again. Through the week I go out only on errands for my mistress. I wish I could work for Christ Jesus my Lord, but how can I?"
"Well, it is difficult, Maria; but is not your duty to answer the door bell?"
"Yes."
"Then carry tracts in your pocket, and when anyone comes to the door to sell or beg, give one away with prayer."
"So I will. I never thought of that! But if they refuse—?"
"If one should refuse, all will not."
The tracts were bought, and soon an occasion for their use offered itself. A woman selling fruit and vegetables at the house rang the bell, and Maria answered her. As the purchase was completed, she quietly gave a tract to the woman.
"What do I want with that trash?" said the woman angrily, and she whirled the tract into the air and went her way. Poor Maria! It was a very discouraging beginning.
Not long after, she was taken ill. In her illness she told the friend who had advised her effort how badly it had succeeded.
"Did you give it with prayer?"
"Oh, yes, and even tears."
"Then leave the results with God. You have done your work, and must be content that the disciple shall not be above the Master. Jesus was scorned by those He came to save. Let no failure turn you from your resolve. When you are better, try again."
But Maria was going to her heavenly home. Her illness was soon ended and she was taken to the Savior's sheltering arms. She never knew what became of her silent messenger.
It was night; an impatient man walked up and down a lane which skirted a large city. Presently he stopped under a street lamp, stooped down, and picked up a piece of paper lying there. It was headed, "What am I living for?"
"What, indeed!" said the man to himself bitterly. Then he crushed the tract in his hand, stood still a minute, unfolded the crumpled paper, and read it to the end. As he left the lane and turned into a street, he went with firm steps and a peaceful heart straight to his home. The crumpled tract was God's arrow to his troubled conscience, and was used to point the way to life everlasting.
Only a "piece of paper" to the woman at the door, poor Maria's despised tract had been carried by the wind to do God's bidding. In His mysterious providence she was not permitted on earth to learn of its fruit, nor of her answered prayer; but by it the erring man had been turned from darkness into the eternal light of God's love. In the day of recompense the timid believer's trembling, tearful effort will receive the Savior's "Well done. Enter thou into the joy of the Lord."
"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord." I Cor. 15:58.